JOSEPH R. O'GORMAN JR., 59

Will Potter, Tribune staff reporterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Joseph R. O'Gorman Jr., 59, chief executive officer and president of DHL Airways and a former executive of Chicago-based United Air Lines, died of a heart attack Saturday, Aug. 10, at Good Shepherd Hospital, Barrington.

Mr. O'Gorman began working for United as an industrial engineer soon after he graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He worked his way up through the company and in 1988 was named senior vice president of maintenance operations for the airline's worldwide maintenance facility in San Francisco. He retired from the company in 1997 as executive vice president of fleet operations and administration. In 2001 he was named chairman and CEO of DHL Airways.

In 1999 he had become chairman and CEO of Reno Air in Dallas and in one year got the endangered airline into a position where it could be sold to American Airlines.

"He genuinely enjoyed turning around companies that were floundering," said Jim Lloyd, a colleague and friend of Mr. O'Gorman's for more than 30 years. "Something would come up that would really excite him and get his competitive juices going, and off he went. And then he would return to United."

Mr. O'Gorman served as head of operations for US Airways and AirCal, and had been president and CEO of Aloha Airlines in Honolulu and Frontier Airlines in Denver.

Family members said Mr. O'Gorman loved his work, but he also loved restoring and maintaining cars. In 1989 he rebuilt a 1974 Chevrolet El Camino with his son, Joseph R. III.

Mr. O'Gorman received a master's degree in business and economics from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and was a guest lecturer on ethics at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where he had studied and played football. He served on the advisory board of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and was a member of the board of St. Louis University.